But this is also where the direct comparison ends, as army sizes in Japan were typically up to 3-5 times higher and were about 3-5 % of the population size. In addition, the Japanese armies were top professionals and top trained. It is analogous to comparing experienced special forces soldiers with conscripts who have just completed the mandatory 4 months of basic training. The most professional part of the German sheriff's armies received a maximum of 6-12 months of intensive training. In Denmark at the same time, it was often weekend training a few hours every Sunday for more than 80 % of the Danish army. In the west this was the norm for a standing professional and supplementary army during this time period.

All comparisons with Japan also stop here. Because there is a very big difference. It's night and day. In Japan, the Japanese samurai warriors trained every day, morning to night, from the age of about 7, under the absolute best instructors that could be found. When they were 12-15 years old, they often experienced their first battle as observers and from the age of 17, they participated directly in the battles. Even the supplementary army's samurai warrior maintenance training can today be compared to the competence development efforts of world elite athletes of 15-30 hours per week. week.

The biggest difference, however, was that men like women, girls like boys from samurai families (Gentry) were trained in martial arts for the purpose. There was equality and diversity in Japan, according to conditions, purpose and task. Historically, samurai girls and women have participated in major battles throughout more than 1200 years of Japanese history. There are many Japanese legendary stories from the battlefield as well as at home, where a feminine and graceful samurai mother has defended her children and home against bandits and slaughtered them all!. See, that's true diversity. The women usually received some other kind of samurai warrior training, but not always! Men and women were equal in the essence of the struggle. They were top-trained, top-motivated, multi-tracked men like women and whole people, and they were deadly dangerous!

This starting point was the original basis for all martial arts today, and it still applies to Yakami Shinsei-ryu Taijutsu & Karate-do.

In Shindenkan according to our voluntary and unpaid association purpose, statutes, guidelines and set of values we have; equality, diversity and everyone without exception is treated the same, regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, education, weight, age etc.

Therefore, a curl must be tied on the tail about the fact that men and women were equal in the essence of the struggle in Japan. This was the case until approx. 1870, when the Meiji Revolution broke out and Japan had to be modernized with an ambition to be the Far East's new superpower. It was already successful almost 35 years later. But that meant a "Trial & Error" adoption of Western technology, experiential knowledge and value adjustment. Including a sharper gender division, which meant that women had to be put down in the West's basic view of women at the time; the weaker sex without male rights, opinions and power.

Even after the end of World War 1 in 1918, when the Treaty of Versailles was to be negotiated in place at the Trianon Palace (today: Waldorf Astoria hotel), the Western powers refused to accept the argument of Japan's chief representative. That human development will prevent war, and all nations and peoples should therefore be equal, including men and women. The only statement of support that the sheriff, general and lawyer Saionji Kinmochi (1849-1940) received was from his old friend from his days at Sorbonne University, French President Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929). All other nations were against, led by the USA, UK, Australia which at the time maintained a strict division of society.